Nashville by day is just as busy as it is by night….its like no one went to bed, including the bands, I kid you not, every place along Broadway still had music blaring out their still open front windows….and it was only 1000am.
Rosie and the Operator were heading down to the Country Music Hall of Fame, we wandered past the Ryman Auditorium, known as the Mother Church of Country Music.
It was here that the Grand Ole Opry in 1943 started its first live radio broadcasts every Friday and Saturday night and would continue to do so for the next thirty one years. Legends such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline have graced the stage. In 1974 the Opry, having outgrew the Rymen, moved to its new, bigger premises, over the winter months when Nashville is a bit quieter, the Grand Ole Opry returns to this building which has since been fully renovated.
On the back streets just off Broadway the noise of music has been replaced with the din of construction, there is so much going on, its Sunday and high rise and building site work is making just as loud a noise as the bands on Broadway. Hotels and office blocks are being built in the inner city as progress creeps on, its good to see this city is doing well economically and speculating good times ahead.
We arrived at The Country Music Hall of Fame right on opening and there were a lot of people waiting to get in.
The Museum chronicles the history of Country music and showcases its biggest stars from the early days to the modern. The displays are really well done and you will find someone you know there. The walls and walls of record awards are impressive as is the personal memorabilia of guitars, costumes, hats, boots, hand written lyrics etc of the stars. There is also info on the music coming out of specific states that started revolutions in certain kinds of sounds. .
We headed back up Broadway the way we travelled last night, the town was full of young people at lunchtime driving pedal powered bars around town doing pub crawls.
Music was blaring from them, a barmaid was in the middle area filling glasses up with drinks and a driver sat in the from working the brakes and using indicators….we must have seen at least 10 of these on the go.
The sun was fierce today at 29c, we sat under a tree down on the water font and took the same pics of the bridge and river boat as we did last night.
This grassy bank leads down to the Cumberland River, the River Boat is parked right in front here. There is absolutely no shade in this Riverside park, hence the lack of people, behind where Rosie is taking the photo is about a dozen trees in a car parking area…..everyone is huddled under these in a not so nice spot out of the sun.
People were still ducking and diving in and out of dim air conditioned bars to escape the heat and to listen to a spot of music. Rosie and The Operator did this too, this guy was really good, he had already been playing for four hours and still had two more to go. He asked the audience to stop buying him drinks….or he would fall off his stool.
The town looks different in the daylight, red brick buildings loom over you and tall glass skyscrapers juxtapose nicely behind, both framed by a brilliant blue sky.
This is the Radio City Mast in the middle of the city and is the Symbol of Nashville showing the world that the best sounds you will hear are coming out of this town. The big building to the left is the Bridgestone Stadium, they play Basketball and Ice Hockey here.
Rosie and The Operator headed on back to the Hotel, The Operator slipped on his boots and checked shirt and we were ready to head on out to The Grand Ole Opry, it is now situated as part of a huge outlet mall complex with hotels and shops all around it. Check out Lady told The Operator that the easiest way to get out there because the traffic is really bad, is to get an Uber. They are half the price of catching a Taxi she guaranteed.
Rosie and The Operator had never used Uber before, so we signed up for an account online, downloaded the app and away we went…on the app we can see about three drivers cruising past our hotel…we notified them we were looking for a ride and boom, within 1 min a car had pulled up and there was smiling Michael, our driver. A middle aged man who had started only 3 weeks ago, he was a lovely guy and had never taken anyone out to The Opry before….even though he was using Uber navigation to get us there he was abit hesitant….he made a split second decision to go another way and….after a screech of brakes and the smell of burning rubber was a whisker away from rear ending the car in front of him…The Operator reckoned he was a whisker away from someone shunting him from behind too with his silly mistake. Well, Michael was mortified, he was that upset by how he had conducted himself Rosie was on the verge of asking him to pull over so she could give him a cuddle. We got there in the end incident free and were delivered to the front door.
The Saturday night show has two seating’s one at 7.00 and one at 9.00, we were there for 7.00 and Rosie bought a poster of the line up. It started promptly on the dot, a Radio announcer was doing the introduction for us in the theater and for the folk listening at home. During the show he would come back in between acts and do advertisements for the radio content. It was one slick show, every performer did two songs and a guest compare, who were country singers themselves would tell jokes and sing a song before the next person or group did their two songs.
There was even a little sing along were we had to do the chorus of a song…so, Rosie and The Operator are proud to say they have sung at The Grand Ole Opry….Grandad would have loved it there….he was with me that night.
The show that night had young up and coming stars, old veterans of the past, gospel singers, square dancers, bluegrass and the final act, Trace Adkins, as soon as he stood on the stage, all the ladies went crazy and everyone pulled out their cameras and took snaps, so you knew he was someone….he was very good…and a handsome cowboy in his mid fifties. Thats him to the left.
It was a great show! Rosie and The Operator loved every foot tapping minuet of it and would recommend it to everyone in that neck of the woods whether they are country music fans or not really…..guaranteed you will enjoy the show.
Getting home…we were a little apprehensive about using an Uber, especially with 4000 odd people looking to get back into town too. Using the mobile phone app we said we wanted a ride and with in seconds Brandon had replied….he rung us to get our pick up location, we said we were standing outside the Forever 21 shop across the road from the Opry and then he pulls up….way to easy! we waited two mins and that was really for him to negotiate the traffic to find us. Brandon was an Uber pro, he had a nice car and had been driving for 18 months…he was also a comedian and in a band when he was not driving…he was a pretty slick customer and told us all about himself on the way home. Next minute, blue and red lights are pulsating in our back window… he has been pulled over by a cop….he too, just like our first driver, was mortified, this has never happened to him before. He was just being cautioned by a nice cop who had noticed he had taken a free right turn, when the intersection had a sign saying NO free turn. Not a great start for us in our introduction to the world of Uber….The Operator is considering taking it up himself at home on his month home…watch this space.
Nashville, totally lived up to expectation for Rosie and The Operator and exceeded it, we didn’t appreciate what a huge, vibrant, busy ongoing entertaining place it is. On the other side of the coin, if you were working in a place like this…in a bar, as an entertainer…you would be burnt out in no time with the ongoing nature of this beast…it was nice to visit for a weekend and then move on…Rosie certainly couldn’t keep up.
Tomorrow Rosie and The Operator are going to Memphis, home of the Blues and Rock n Roll, we are going to wander the legendary Beale Street and head on over for to Graceland for a spot of tea in the Jungle Room.
